


his heart, the ocean

by sanguination



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, basically viktor has a brother, enjoy i guess!, i legit don’t know how to tag this man idk, i made him up he is not canon, i wrote this three years ago and i just found it and it’s mostly unedited so take that as you will, lol is that even a tag, tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:08:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23921347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguination/pseuds/sanguination
Summary: viktor is full of love.his heart, just like the ocean and his smile, curling up at the corners like kindling on a fire.he holds the title of ‘world’s best big brother’ with pride.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	his heart, the ocean

Full of love, full of love. 

His heart, just like the ocean and his smile, curling up at the corners like kindling on a fire. 

"Dress warmly, Lyosha," he tells Alexei. "You wouldn't want to catch a cold."  
"Yeah, yeah, I will, _Mama_."  
"I love you," Viktor warmly supplies, ignoring Alexei's comment.  
"I love you too, Viten'ka, but I'm just going to the grocery store. I'll be right back." 

And Alexei _does_ love Viktor. His big brother, with his heart-shaped smile and his fairy floss blond hair and his big, sad blue eyes. 

Viktor is fourteen, Alexei twelve, and they don't know where Mama went but she said she would be back soon. Soon, so soon, and they wait and wait for days upon weeks until it becomes quite clear that she is not coming back soon. 

Viktor trudges them, the cat Masha, and their backpacks of clothes to their aunt's house, and although she is not happy with her sister for pushing onto her the responsibility of two children, she allows them her spare bedroom upstairs. 

The rink is the only place that Viktor feels safe anymore. Skating holds him like his mother never did, like his aunt cannot. Skating pets his hair, croons him to sleep, tells him everything's going to be alright. The rink where he skates is dodgy, falling apart, and smells kind of bad, but ice is ice. 

And he loves the ice.

Viktor doesn't let Alexei see him cry, not even when he twists his ankle at the rink because he couldn't see for the tears fogging his vision, but he cries and cries. 

On the nights when Alexei can't sleep, Viktor creeps into his twin bed and distracts him with stories of what they'll do when they move to America. They'll live in New York City in a shoebox apartment and eat bagels and drink copious amounts of coffee like real Americans do. Alexei falls asleep curled against Viktor and Viktor doesn't dare move until his brother stirs awake in the morning. 

Viktor gets scouted before they can make the trip. He's modeled before—he starred in a soda advertisement when he was nine, featured in a kids' magazine when he was twelve, nothing big, but he did it because he had the face and money is money. They see him skate and they want him, they want him right now. 

_You're beautiful, talented, charming. We'll make you a star._

And, true to their word, they do.

At sixteen, Viktor desperately begs to bring Lyosha along when they decide to move him to St. Petersburg; no more of Yekaterinburg. He's told that he can't afford to be distracted, that his brother will be fine on his own. 

"I'll be fine, Viten'ka," Alexei parrots their words when they're arguing in the kitchen of their now-dead aunt's house. "I'm fourteen now. Go. I want you to go. If you stayed here, I would be more upset." 

Viktor isn't convinced. All he can think about is the thirty-one hours that will separate them, for God knows how long, and Masha seems to be thinking the same thing as she flicks her tail at him knowingly. "Lyosha—" he starts, hands flying up in an exasperated gesture. 

"No, Viten'ka," Alexei cuts him off, blue eyes flaring. "Go be a star. Just don't forget about me, okay? Be beautiful, and be happy." 

Viktor hugs him, and doesn't let go, and doesn't let go, and doesn't let go. 

In St. Petersburg, he aches for Alexei and he throws himself into training. He doesn't see anything except his sloppy free leg, his inability to land a quad flip for some godforsaken reason, and he doesn't even notice the way his body screams at him to stop. Yakov notices, though, and he finally barks at Viktor, "No training for a week! Rest!"

This makes Viktor inordinately angry, and he curses and throws his phone across the room, where it shatters. He doesn't care, he hates it here. He doesn't know anyone, the rink is unfamiliar, and he can barely string together words in English, which is all anyone wants to speak nowadays. His heart, the ocean, roars and his chest feels tight. 

Despite all of it, he rests, and he gets a new phone. He calls Alexei, who sounds tired and worried, and he realizes that he isn't making his brother proud at all. Lyosha told him to be happy, and he isn't happy, not one bit. He drinks and drinks to stifle the pain in his legs and back, and he only stops to breathe when he's vomiting it all up every night. 

That's not a way to live. He's not making anyone proud. 

So Viktor throws himself back into the grind, wearing himself down to the bone because he has to win and suddenly he starts to win. Cameras are suddenly in his face everywhere he goes, and how does it feel to be a gold medalist at only sixteen? 

Russia's star. Russia's hero. The best big brother. A boy can only bear so many titles. 

And that's what he is. A boy. A frightened, lonely boy, but he opens his heart up to figure skating and it rewards him. 

Beautiful girls and boys flock after him, name brands start to call him and he gets his first sponsorship with a huge shoe brand. Management is happy, and Viktor wonders where it began. 

Alexei doesn't call. He wonders if his little brother saw him on television, winning for Russia, winning for him. 

* * *

Viktor turns eighteen, twenty, and suddenly he's twenty two and all he can think about is Alexei. He hears from Lyosha twice a year, on their respective birthdays. He's twenty now and he has a part time job as a construction worker for some fancy, white-collar project in Yekaterinburg. 

Viktor warns him about the danger, he could get killed, and Alexei laughs, "Big brother, I'll be fine, as long as you keep winning gold medals for me." 

So he _has_ been watching. 

On Christmas Day, he waits for Lyosha's call all day to no avail. Mila and Georgi shower him with gifts and try to keep him distracted with games and jokes and embarrassing stories. It works for a few hours, but his mind wanders back to his little brother and how he seems to be growing out of Viktor's fierce love. His friends leave at midnight, and he tries to call Lyosha himself. There's no answer, and he sleeps uneasily. 

He calls again the next day, and the next, and the next. No reply. Alexei doesn't answer his texts, either, not even when Viktor sends cute pictures of Makkachin doing silly things. 

On New Year's Eve, Viktor is drunk and lonely and he calls Alexei's landlady, asks her where Alexei is and why he isn't answering his cell phone.

She sounds surprised, perhaps apologetic. "You-you mean—you don't know? You are his brother, correct?" 

"Yes? What's wrong? Did something happen?" Viktor's palms are already sweating. 

"I—Mr. Nikiforov, I am so sorry. I wish I didn't have to tell you this over the phone. Alexei, your brother, he-he passed away about a week ago in a car accident. No one called? His things are still here, I was about to call the cleaning company to come take them away." 

Viktor's world stops. A week. 

He doesn't know when he drops the phone, he doesn't have a clue what the woman is babbling on about, she's so sorry, so sorry. 

He doesn't—he's trying to make heads or tails of what she's said. In his heart, the ocean, a terrible storm brews. 

And then he's on the floor wailing, ugly sobs ripping crudely from his throat, and his breath jerks so violently in his chest he thinks he's going to die. 

He weeps and he thrashes and he screams and someone is pounding on the wall for him to shut up but he can't stop howling into the hardwood floors of his apartment in lonely St. Petersburg. 

It's Yakov who breaks down his door, but Viktor is still curled on the ground, his cries having dwindled down into a keening sound so profound that he doesn't even know it's coming from his own body. 

"Vitya," Yakov says firmly, but his voice is uncertain because he has never seen his strong, determined Vitya like this. "Vitya, what happened?" 

He kneels and embraces Viktor, his entire body wracking with silent sobs. 

"Lyosha," he chokes out. "Dead." 

"Oh, Vitya," Yakov sighs. "I'm so sorry." 

And father holds son until the sun rises. 

* * * 

Viktor arrives in Yekaterinburg wordlessly, and leaves the same. He carries the urn holding Alexei to the nameless park where they used to sit and eat pirozhki. The boxes full of Alexei's belongings sit heavy in the trunk of his rental car. 

He kisses Lyosha goodbye, and in his heart, the ocean, enormous waves froth and crash.

* * * 

He continues to win for Alexei.

In every gold medal he sees dirty blond hair, and in every bouquet of roses he sees stubborn blue eyes. 

In Yuri, he sees the vulnerability of a child, and perhaps Lyosha tucked in the back of his mind is what makes him immune to little Yura's spitfire scowl. 

In his dreams every night, Alexei appears, but every time, he collapses into thin air before Viktor can hug him tight. Dream Alexei calls out to Viktor with that lopsided grin that he has, and Viktor calls back, but it's like he can't hear his big brother screaming back at him at all. Every night. 

Yuuri doesn't know about Alexei until they're packing up to move to an apartment in Moscow, and he finds a cracked old album featuring pictures of six year old Vitya with an unfamiliar boy whose features carry the same elegance as Viktor's, the same sloped nose and piercing eyes, although they are both young and soft. 

"Vitya?" Yuuri's voice carries sweetly to the other room where Viktor is trying to disassemble a nightstand. 

"Yes, my love?" he sings back, wiping sweat from his brow.

"Come here, please," and Viktor does, he would do anything for his Yuuri. Besides, the nightstand is starting to truly piss him off. 

"Who's this?" Yuuri holds up the photo and Viktor leans closer to see, squinting. 

His throat closes suddenly and his heart, the ocean, clenches and swells in five years worth of grief. 

"Ah, that's—" he tries to start explaining but for some reason, no words will come out. 

"Vitya, are you alright?" Yuuri regrets ever asking. 

"That's my little brother," he chokes out. "He lives—he lived in Yekaterinburg. His name was Alexei, and he's dead now. Need anything while I'm up?" His nonchalant, sing-song attitude has dropped to the floor, and Viktor almost shakes with the effort of keeping his face from betraying his emotions. 

Yuuri stares back at him, too shocked to say anything. Brother? There's no way. Viktor wouldn't have hidden that from him for so long. How could he not have known that Viktor has a brother? And that he's _dead_? 

While Yuuri's head continues to spin off his shoulders, Viktor fakes a sick, unconvincing smile and drags himself to the kitchen where he clutches the sink with white knuckles and tries to force himself to get a grip.

 _No reason to lose your head, Viktor. It's been a long time. Lyosha wouldn't have wanted you to freak out over a little photograph. It's alright. Yuuri didn't mean anything by it._

Viktor stares into the yellow porcelain of the sink, and a misplaced laugh barks out of him.

* * *

In his heart—the ocean—

something floats to the surface.

_Viten'ka._

**Author's Note:**

> hello!!!!! so! i was going through my files from about three years ago and i found whatever this is :-) this is not canon and viktor does not have a brother in the show but i thought what the hell what if he did ya know? anyway i hope u like it :-) my tumblr is @honeyshouyou please come interact with me!!!!!!! i love all of you sm


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